


Nightmares

by Olos



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 19:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15588876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olos/pseuds/Olos





	Nightmares

I stand in a flat, barren landscape. Or is it a room? Either way, it’s brownish red, and it makes me very uneasy, as if some fell power or presence is near.  
All of a sudden, a scream rips through the air. I know who it is-Frodo!  
I whirl around, searching wildly for the source. It comes from a deep canyon in front of me now- I take off running down it. It seems to take forever to get there, but around a bend I find him.

The sight is awful, terrible. He’s strapped to some table or platform, and marks of long torture are present all over him. Faceless, vague figures move around him, carrying various instruments that I’m sure bear no good use. One figure takes out some cruel point or blade and jabs Frodo with it, so he writhes and screams.  
I’m standing, rooted to the spot, horrified and nauseated.

He sees me, and turns to me as best he can, and screams, “Gandalf! HELP!”  
I spring forwards, to him, but some unseen, unseeable wall rebuffs me mid leap, and I fall heavily back. Getting back up, I challenge the wall with force, strikes and curses and spells, but nothing works. I summon forth all my strength, and all the Power I can muster, well beyond the limits that I ought to show to anyone besides someone who has been to Valinor, but it doesn’t matter because I must must save him.  
But even that swell of Power does not shatter the wall. I keep pounding uselessly on it.

He screams again, “Please! Help me!”  
“I am trying!” I yell back, strikes re-doubling.  
There’s no sign that he hears me, but illogically I hope he has anyway.  
“Why don’t you want to help me?” He wails. A sudden fire takes his eyes and he is angry. “I hate you!”  
“I do want to help! Please, I do truly! But I am stuck by some force!” Grief joins my horror and my throat seems to close painfully.

The figures hear his calls for help, and a second makes a cut along his arm with some cruel blade.  
“Gandalf!” He wails again, anger swallowed by pain and despair, and he strains for me, and I cannot help him no matter how much I need to.

Suddenly my sight flies forward, although I do not move, flying in on Frodo’s face and he screams again. I shut my eyes and clench them shut.

I open them to darkness. I am sitting up on some soft surface, gasping for air and my throat still feels shrunken. The screams and words echo in my ears but I am not where I was-this place does not make me uneasy at all. I hear a soft breeze, and I realize I’m in a tent. I reason that I was dreaming.  
I let out a ragged sigh that is loud in the silence of night. I’m finding it difficult to reign in my breathing.

Something shifts nearby, and a silhouette of a man appears at the edge of my vision. The face is turned to me, but I cannot make out any features.  
“Gandalf? Are you alright?” The silhouette asks, and I recognize the voice as Aragorn’s. Of course, we lie in beds near to each other in the tent.  
“I am alright,” I respond.  
A pause.  
“Do you feel that anything is…off? I was woken by some sudden swell of…magic, of your sort, strong enough that I could sense. It’s fading but I thought I would ask, especially now that you are awaking in…this state.” He clearly isn’t convinced that I’m alright.  
I think on his question, and feel about me for Powers other than my own, which I realized, is alight and rallied-I must have actually summoned it forth in the waking world as I was dreaming.  
“There are no other magic users of my order besides myself that I can feel.” I say definitively.  
“It must have been you…but you were sleeping.”  
“I…was dreaming, and must have absently summoned forth my own magic because of a happening in the dream.”  
“It must have been a bad dream then.”  
“It…was.”

A hand is set on my shoulder, and it makes me realize I am shivering.

“Are you sure you are alright?” The question is posed softly.  
“I…will be.”  
A sudden flare of warmth comes from Aragorn’s hand through my body. I realize he’s using what little Power he has in an attempt to comfort me.  
“Aragorn, save your energy for the wounded,” I chastise gently.  
“But…you need this,” he protests.  
“Estel, you need to rest.”  
“I-if you insist.”  
“I do.” I let my voice get the hint of steel.

He lies back down, and rolls away from me. I too lie back down, but my shivering gets worse and the dream haunts me.  
I pull my blanket closer around me, and feel miserable. I reluctantly agree with Aragorn-I do need comfort, but it is too late to ask for it now.  
The sudden urge to hug something strikes hard-but given the late hour, people would be asleep, and would not enjoy being awoken by an old man seeking comfort. So I instead grope about me, in the thin hope that there is something soft was around me.  
As I feel on the ground around my bed, I find a promising object, a bundle of cloth. I pick it up-its my cloak. Deciding it’s probably the best I’ll get, I pull it into myself. It eases me somewhat, but I am very aware of my shivering. Eventually though, I fall into a doze.

 

I wake just after sunrise. I can tell Aragorn is about to wake, so quickly I uncurl myself from the cloak and put it down where it was. I feign sleep as he rises and stretches. He moves to get changed, and stir on purpose when I hear him fetch his clothes.  
“Good morning” I say, trying to make my voice sound groggy.  
“Good morning to you too-I’m changing, by the way.”  
I make a noise of acknowledgement and keep my head turned away for a few minutes, before I get up and change too.  
“We ought to check up on Frodo and Samwise,” he suggests.  
I peer at him, he hasn’t yet made a check up on Frodo and Samwise before breakfast. I really want to, however.  
“Yes, we ought to,” I reply.

We walk to where the hobbits lie. They’re peaceful, asleep still, unchanged from yesterday. All the same, I move for Frodo, trying to keep urgency out of my gait, and sit beside him, feeling for the beat, rhythm within the neck that I was taught long ago meant life. I find it, the beat slow and regular, soothing. I hold back the urge to hang my head and sigh with some difficulty.  
“It’s alright, you can relax,” coaxes Aragorn.   
So I do, slumping forward and letting the sigh leave me.


End file.
